August is a bad month for jobs, and this year was no exception. It registered unemployment has increased by 22,000 people until reaching 2,572,121 unemployed; At the same time, the number of Social Security affiliates was reduced by 194,000, bringing the average number of contributors to 21,189,402. The seasonality of the second month of summer once again determines the results, although there are more serious behaviors than in previous years: 2024 is the month of August in which the most jobs have been destroyed in the last five years, due to the significant increase in canceled contracts in the education sector, which lost more than 72,000 workers compared to July. These are the biggest destructions in this sector in the last decade, according to the data provided this Tuesday by the Ministry of Social Security, which show that the practice of doing without educators during the summer to hire them later in September with the start of the school year has not been reversed with the labor reform.
Although with the onset of summer the job market is picking up, Job creation showed signs of fatigue in Julyand August could not avoid the contagion. There were two consecutive months in which the number of affiliates decreased and, since the summer accelerated, more than 200,000 jobs have been destroyed. With the gradual advance of the summer period, the records of some sectors of activity are changing. Thus, while 2,172 jobs were created in the hotel sector, both in education and in construction, the blow was considerable: between the two, almost half of the victims in the total count average affiliations (-47%). Knowing that in education the number of women exceeds that of men, they are also the ones who lost their jobs the most (-98,765).
The only light that surrounds these results is that, despite the decline, thanks to the progressive increase in members throughout the year – which however represents the fifth consecutive month above 21 million contributors – there are still, in general, more people working than a year ago (almost half a million); and among them, there are 130,400 more educators than those present in the same month of 2023. On the contrary, the activities that recorded a higher affiliation than in July were the Health and Social Services Activities (+17,000). However, in percentage terms, the reduction in the number of members was only 0.91%, a figure that, comparatively, is not one of the most relevant of the entire historical series of this month.
“We have consolidated 21.1 million workers and we are very close to 21.2 million, in a month with a strong seasonal component. Furthermore, it should be noted that The presence of foreign subsidiaries is one of the driving forces of our labour market“, said Social Security Minister Elma Saiz. However, the number of foreign subsidiaries also decreased in August by just over 22,000 subsidiaries. The document provided by Saiz's department celebrates that there are currently “more than 14.3 million people employed with a permanent contract, of which more than 9.6 million work full time.” Which means “approximately 3.4 million members (3,361,836) with a permanent contract more since the approval of the labor reform (+30.5%).”
Regarding the distribution by regime, the general one concentrated the blow with 182,867 fewer positions, while the group of self-employed workers also decreased: in August, a total of 3,371,350 were counted, which represents 10,135 fewer self-employed workers than in the previous month. month.
Historical series
Regarding registered unemployment – obtained from the calculation of applicants registered in all the country's employment offices – the data for August provided by the Ministry of Labor are slightly more favorable than a month ago. Although the number of unemployed increased by 21,884, this increase is the lowest since 2016, and in total, there are 130,500 fewer unemployed than a year ago. The slightly more than 2.5 million unemployed also constitute the lowest figure for this month since 2008. Services concentrated the largest increase (+20,189), followed by Construction (+4,187) and Industry (+2,995). While Agriculture (-2,337) and the group of applicants without previous employment (-3,150) lightened their figures compared to those of July.
Although women continue to be the majority among the unemployed – female unemployment increased by 10,913 women (0.71%) and amounts to a total of 1,550,658 -, this is the lowest figure in a historical series that begins in 2009 in August. In fact, compared to the same month of 2023, female unemployment decreased by 78,783 fewer unemployed women (-4.83%). Something similar happens with young people: in August the number of people under 25 and unemployed August saw an increase of 2,186 people (1.25%) compared to the previous month, although the total stood at 177,112, the lowest figure in the series for this period.
By territory, although 14 of the 17 communities have destroyed jobs, the most significant falls have been capitalized by Catalonia, the Community of Madrid and the Community of Valencia, in that order – they represent a total of 68% of the drop in staff -, while only Extremadura, Cantabria and the Canary Islands have managed to create new jobs (only 3,964).
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